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My last holiday stay in Lisbon (PT) has resulted in another work dedicated to LionHeartProject: Mr. D.Evil. Now you can also view it on their website: www.lionheartproject.com. As always with great pleasure I created something inspired by the works of Shauna’s. Warm greetings for all crew of Lion Heart Project.

Today I’m pleased to present four of Mad Devils in Lisbon. They ture there for some time and I hope that still feel great. Stiched them on traffic light poles in the city center during my last vacation. A little time has passed and I publish these pictures with some delay but hope that my crazy critters are still there. I made it entirely by crochet and I must admit that I am very pleased with the result. So far I underestimated this humble tool. I took them on a trip because it seemed more convenient to carry with me. And very well that I had it. Thanks to these crazy creatures were created. I had the opportunity to crochet a lot. I used every spare moment. Nicest was resting in the shade of trees in the park or in the coffee garden, knitting at the time. All Mad Devils were created during my stay in Lisbon and I think they fit well with the climate of this city: funny, crazy and beautiful in the glow of sun. That I recall Lisbon now during autumn days. I miss it a lot …

Long time since returned from holiday in Portugal, but I still remember them. Actually lives in the memories … Fortunately, I have many photographs that I made there of cool stuff that I left there. And I can enjoy the view for a while.

Today I present some photos of a green Evil. he he he .. Well, is not that evil. Just D. Evil, nothing more. And even handsome:). Prepared him in Rotterdam, before leaving on vacation. I imagined that it would look good in the sunshine. And so it is. As I planned I put him in the heart of Lisbon. Also provided him with LionHeartProject tag. I thought it would be good to leave something of their character also in the Portuguese capital, if I had such an opportunity. I hope that I found in the tastes of the audience and the devil will be there felt good. At least the weather is better than here.

First, I must admit that I really like “Monster Foot” as a guerilla knitting project. It’s easy and simple to do, nicely presented and doen’t take much time. On the street it looks interesting, draws attention and entertains passers-by. So far was a big fan of this project. However, the possibility of observation already made Monster Feet raises a number of applications about their practicality.

First we watched regularly was “Monster Foot” from Porto, because I put it at point of the city which I passed many times during my stay there. Just two days after installed, I noticed that she was tucked up by someone a little higher above sidewalk level. I slipped it down and wondered for a moment why someone picks it up? Did not see that’s the foot? With claws? It should stand on the sidewalk? However, a few days later, the situation repeated again: I found it on the top of street sigh. This time even higher. Again, I slipped downstairs and also found no rational explanation for the reason why someone did it.

A few days later mounted another foot in Portugal. This time the “Chicken Foot” in Lisbon. And in this case, history repeated itself exactly the same: I saw foot again raised up. I must admit that this time the puzzle began to bother me very much. Still, I didn’t know how to explain it. Why does the same thing is happening in two different places far away from each other? After all, it can not be a joke. What is the reason?

The answer came on the same evening, quite by accident. I noticed that the streets and sidewalks are cleaned by small cars with rotary brushes and water. So that’s it! Does the city cleaning workers cared for the welfare of guerrilla installations? They raise them up for not to damage! Unbelievable! The answer surprised me very much and makes me also happy. It raised my faith in people. Conclusion gives sense of optimism: I dare say that a large proportion of people positively approaches guerilla knitting. I hope that not only in Portugal and not only cleaning service.

After a few days in Lisbon, I had a minute to once again see the foot from Porto. I found it already much damaged, torn and crumpled. I think patience and the good will of the worker was over. After I left it down a few times no longer wanted to raise up it. Well, that’s the street life. Only the strongest or adapt best will survive. And as you can see even for monsters with claws is pretty hard.

By the way, warm greetings and compliments to the urban workers in Porto and Lisbon!

And what are the lessons from this history beyond the respect for municipal services? As you can see some ideas can be extremely effective but also not practical. Of course, rather difficult to predict all possible problems when planning a project. But seeing how they operate then in real life, on the street, allow to draw conclusions and better plan future projects. It is difficult to expect that such a thing as yarnbombing will persist indefinitely in the city. Are exposed to many opportunities to destroy not only the cleaning of streets, but if they are well planned can live longer. If they resist of course a commonplace demolition of hateful people or municipal guards.

And after returning from holiday I visited my Monster Feet in Rotterdam. One of them has disappeared (it may have been corrupted?) and the second one I found also slightly raised up. Could the same phenomenon? So, also bows to the city service workers from Rotterdam.

One more time there is knitted foot in my guerilla activities. This time the Chicken Foot, in sunny yellow color. I prepared it in home advance before trip to Portugal (like that Monster Foot from Porto) and I took already finished with me. Dimension I set up as the most universal, suggesting my experience and available sizes of various municipal poles. Then I looked for the corresponding column at the time wandering around the city. Luckily I found one in a great location at a popular and frequented spot. I must admit that it looks great there. Unfortunately, subsequent observations of that Foot (and the previous feet from Porto & Rotterdam) show that unfortunately this is not the happiest design for installation in urban space. I will write about those observations in the next post.